Analysis of Mason & Dixon, Part 1 - Chapter 7.2: The Indifference-Draught, Ghosts, the Dagger, the British East India Company (EIC), Maskelyne's Nepotism, Ressurection and Redemption
Does the upcoming release of Shadow Ticket change your plan meaningfully to review Pynchon's work by historical chronology? It's set in late-era Prohibition /1930s so should come between Against the Day and Gravity's Rainbow.
Which should give you plenty of time to get to it, but it strikes me you've probably, like me, read these books several times and combined with research (annotations etc) to do the chapter by chapter analysis, so might want a couple-three goes at it before giving it the same treatment.
The plan remains! Mason & Dixon won't end until mid to late 2026. Against the Day will probably take 2 years if not more (I'm actually guessing 2.5-3 since it's not only longer but the pages have more words per page). That'd put me at 2029 or maybe even 2030 (jesus that feels far away) before I even finish up AtD and I'm gonna assume I'll at least have read the book twice by then, plus another read that I'll do right before beginning the project.
Yeah it is... It kind of makes me want to deviate from that plan because I'm going to end up spending about 7 years on 3 books and then probably something like 5 years on the other 6 lol. But oh well, I think this is the best way to do it so I'll stick to the plan!
I also feel like M&D and AtD are the longest because they cover the largest swathe of history. All books that take place after those two cover a select few years in the 20th century (except Vineland but that's really told through flashbacks). GR is the obvious exception of length vs. timespan covered, but he also had the most to say there.
Question:
Does the upcoming release of Shadow Ticket change your plan meaningfully to review Pynchon's work by historical chronology? It's set in late-era Prohibition /1930s so should come between Against the Day and Gravity's Rainbow.
Which should give you plenty of time to get to it, but it strikes me you've probably, like me, read these books several times and combined with research (annotations etc) to do the chapter by chapter analysis, so might want a couple-three goes at it before giving it the same treatment.
The plan remains! Mason & Dixon won't end until mid to late 2026. Against the Day will probably take 2 years if not more (I'm actually guessing 2.5-3 since it's not only longer but the pages have more words per page). That'd put me at 2029 or maybe even 2030 (jesus that feels far away) before I even finish up AtD and I'm gonna assume I'll at least have read the book twice by then, plus another read that I'll do right before beginning the project.
Yeah makes sense. Funny that his historical chronology launches with two of his longest books.
Yeah it is... It kind of makes me want to deviate from that plan because I'm going to end up spending about 7 years on 3 books and then probably something like 5 years on the other 6 lol. But oh well, I think this is the best way to do it so I'll stick to the plan!
I also feel like M&D and AtD are the longest because they cover the largest swathe of history. All books that take place after those two cover a select few years in the 20th century (except Vineland but that's really told through flashbacks). GR is the obvious exception of length vs. timespan covered, but he also had the most to say there.
Being one that doesn’t keep up with news very well, you’ve just made my day!